Ombudsman fires another salvo in ongoing battle over IDF’s readiness for war

A Defense Ministry ombudsman has accused army commanders of lying about the military’s preparedness for war, in a letter sent to a powerful Knesset committee recently, as part of an ongoing spat between the retired general and the IDF General Staff.

“Commanders are afraid of speaking the truth, among some of them, their mouth and their heart aren’t the same,” wrote Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick, in a missive to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is published by Hadashot news.

Over the past year, Brick has led a campaign warning lawmakers and the public that the Israel Defense Forces is unprepared for war, with significant quantitive and qualitative disparities between what the military says it needs and what it actually has.

The army has roundly rejected Brick’s claims, yet IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot appointed a committee to investigate the allegations.